$6bn to be spent on US elections in 2012

If you’re someone who is at an oil company or on Wall Street, and you really want oil companies or Wall Street to be deregulated, then giving $10 million or $20 million is a very small investment.”
Bill Burton, Founder of a pro-Democratic Party superPAC, Priorities USA

Nearly $6 billion has been projected to be spent on all the US elections in 2012 , raising questions about the democratic nature of the American electoral system.
Reporting that this year’s elections will be the most expensive in history, the US-based National Public Radio adds that $5.8 billion is being injected in big and small congressional as well as presidential election campaigns across the country.
Much of the money, according to the report, comes from superPACs, or Political Action Committees, as well as other wealthy outside groups free to spend as much funds as they want mostly on political advertisement supporting incumbent US President Barack Obama or his Republican rival Mitt Romney.
The report goes on to quote US election experts as emphasizing that such large sums of hidden money injected into the vote process by corporate and union donors effectively makes the political race “more about the money than the merits of the candidate.”
The large corporate and trade union donors aren’t interested in democracy but in a return in their investment,” says Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics.
“They have an agenda,” she insists. “The problem is we may not know who stands to gain and what they will get in the end.”
“I think the money will be very targeted… in the swing states and in specific places,” Krumholz says. “[But] we will not know when the money will drop, where [it will drop] and where it’s coming from.”
Swing states refers to those US states that are not clearly inclined to vote for the Democratic candidate Obama or his Republican rival Romney. Both dominant political parties traditionally tend to spend vast amounts of money in such states on propaganda media advertising to win enough votes to carry the entire state.
The American president is elected by an Electoral College system rather than the popular vote, which means that whichever candidate carries the popular vote in any US state, even by the smallest margin, would be granted the entire Electoral College votes assigned to that state. The candidate that receives the most Electoral College votes would be declared the president.
“If you’re someone who is at an oil company or on Wall Street, and you really want oil companies or Wall Street to be deregulated, then giving $10 million or $20 million is a very small investment,” says Bill Burton, Founder of a pro-Democratic Party superPAC, Priorities USA.
“This is not the way democracy should work,” he says ironically, “and campaign finance reform is an important thing.”
MFB/MA